Jim Sterling (The Jimquisition)

One that would be more effective if it were possible to read any of the text in the image Jim tweeted, but Twitter's stupid image viewer thing squishes it down so much that it's basically meaningless squiggles.

Alright then heres the previous tweet

Right-click, "View Image", append ":orig" to resutling URL, get this.

...the f*ck is Dead Union?

Yeah, I would say this experiment is entirely successful, and Jim is right.

Jimquisition live 2015.

Scam Or Stupidity? - Journey Of The Light

Greenlight Won’t Get Better When Steam Won’t Enforce Its Own Rules

The Jimquisition Store is here.

Red Ashes.

I've actually heard of this dev before. One of my friends who doesn't like indie developers referenced him when talking about devs who were bitching about the refunds policy.

I asked Jim Sterling about the trailer for that video slot Silent Hill pachinko thing on ask.fm and this was the answer

Stay tuned folks!

edited 6th Aug '15 6:56:40 AM by YoKab

The Silent Hell that is Konami

#fuckonami

edited 10th Aug '15 12:28:42 PM by EarlOfSandvich

PULL THE LEVER!

Hey, at least Silent Hill and Castlevania are getting pachinko machines. Konami has long since forgotten that Suikoden exists. #fuckonami

A pachinko machine is no comfort to fans of the series. #fuckonami

edited 10th Aug '15 12:23:37 PM by TobiasDrake

I can't wait for the new pachinko game Plastic Gear Solid. #FuckKonami #RipSilentHill

edited 10th Aug '15 12:41:24 PM by YoKab

Maybe Kojima will give one last middle finger to Konami by taking the Fox engine with him.

I don't see that happening.

I also don't see Konami ever using the Fox Engine ever again, because it almost certainly won't work on mobile phones.

Today's subject on the Jimquisition is about the games known as "Walking Simulators".

edited 17th Aug '15 7:52:17 AM by YoKab

As much as I love he is calling bullshit on the "not a game" rhetoric, I feel Jim might be missing the point a bit. He talks a bit about how he felt many games, include the ones he liked, don't involve the player much. The thing is, I believe that is the whole point. The player/main character is an observer. Looking at the scenery and figuring out what happened. If you change that, it would be a completely different game. It is understandable if he just plain don't like this kind of thing, but it seems arrogant to say this is a failing in the genre.

I mean, I am not saying there are not bad games on this genre or anything. I just think that the reason they are bad is not necessarily because they "failed" at involving the main character in its story or because the players actions have no meaningful consequence. It is because they failed at what they were trying to do, be it captivating through narrative or through atmospheric mood.

edited 17th Aug '15 8:36:31 AM by Heatth

>The thing is, I believe that is the whole point. The player/main character is an observer. Looking at the scenery and figuring out what happened.

As Yahtzee put it: Look, am I actually part of this story or am I the fucking janitor?

You are an observer, which is not the same as begin the janitor (although I do know of a game in which you play as a janitor). If you don't like this kind of game it is fine, but don't offend the game itself and those who like it.

I don't like first person shooters. But it would be asinine for me to say first person shooters would be better games if they were RPGs instead. Or, to be closer to what Jim said. It would be absurd for me to claim that it is a cardinal sin for a shooter to talk about war, and that they would be better games if they were about other things instead.

EDIT:Lets me explain better: Jim said that, although he liked the game, he felt that playing as the titular character would be more engaging than as the investigator in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. That might be true and, indeed, it is a problem on a personal level. However, a game about playing as Ethan Carter would be a fundamentally different game. It is simply not the same experience nor it is meant to be. I plan on buying TVOEC, but I wouldn't give a second glance if the game was about Ethan Carter himself. That is because what peeked my attention on the game was precisely the idea of playing a (paranormal) investigator, looking for clues in an open area, detached from the actual events. Maybe the game is not all that engaging, which means the creators failed somewhere, but the solution wouldn't be transforming it on a completely different thing.

edited 17th Aug '15 1:48:20 PM by Heatth

He brings up a lot of good points that I agree with. Walking simulators aren't all bad, rather they can be good or bad depending on execution like all other genres of videogames. The games he brought up are good examples of this.

Oh, yeah, he brings a lot of good points. I just think he missed the point a lot in other ways. Specifically, while he said that "walking simulators" can be good or bad depending on the execution, he was too deterministic in what he consider a "good execution". Not being the kind of game, or the kind of narrative, you wished it be doesn't make the execution bad. He was focus on the wrong things.

I disagree. He was pretty much spot on on how many of these games whiffed on their execution. I mean, being an observer is cool and all, but if the world you're observing is fucking pants, then there's no real enjoyment is there?

The problem is that he actually said the game should involve the MC in a major way. Which is plain disagree. It is a limiting mentality. It is like saying classic mystery novels are not good because the detective is almost always have no actual bearing in the plot (aside uncovering stuff, I mean).

Yes, if he had just said the problem with these games is because the world they were building was boring and repetitive, then it would be fine. But, even though he said that, he also said the player should be more involved in the world and/or change said world with its actions.

Except that it's a convention in games that the player character should be involved in the plot, one way or another. After all, interactivity is the one thing games have above other media, and making the main character a glorified janitor (which comes back to the Look, am I actually part of this story or am I the fucking janitor? Yahtzee quote) is a waste of that.